Scott Sumner on Monetary Rules, Blooming Late, and the Death of Cinema (Ep. 231)
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感谢一位听众赞助这份“纪念约翰·霍拉汉”的文字记录。
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2025 年有 4 个空缺名额可供成绩单赞助。
A one-time donation of $750 or more will qualify you for a transcript sponsorship like this one.
一次性捐赠 750 美元或更多，您就有资格获得像这样的成绩单赞助。
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler, which occasionally aspires to be a conversation.
大家好，欢迎回到《与泰勒对话》，它偶尔渴望成为一场对话。
Today I’m talking with Scott Sumner.
今天我正在与斯科特·萨姆纳交谈。
Scott is an extremely well-known economist, known perhaps most for his blog, The Money Illusion, where he was and still is, in fact, the world’s leading champion of nominal GDP level targeting.
斯科特是一位极其知名的经济学家，最出名的可能是他的博客《金钱幻觉》，事实上，他曾经是、现在仍然是世界名义 GDP 水平目标的领先拥护者。
Scott has numerous books on monetary theory and history.
斯科特有许多关于货币理论和历史的书籍。
He also blogs at Econlib, and he is a long-standing Mercatus affiliate, among other things.
他还在 Econlib 上撰写博客，并且是 Mercatus 的长期会员等。
For many years, he was a professor at Bentley in Massachusetts.
多年来，他一直担任马萨诸塞州本特利大学的教授。
Scott, welcome.
斯科特，欢迎。
Oh, thank you.
哦，谢谢。
It’s good to be here.
很高兴来到这里。
Now, for your books on the Great Depression, you once said that you read the New York Times for many years in a row, for I think the 1920s and the 1930s.
现在，对于您关于大萧条的书籍，您曾经说过您连续多年阅读《纽约时报》，我认为是 1920 年代和 1930 年代。
Monetary theory aside, what was the biggest surprise that you learned about that era?
抛开货币理论不谈，您对那个时代最大的惊讶是什么？
Oh, it’s hard to say.
哦，这很难说。
I think the thing that felt interesting about it was to see how people saw things as the events played out in real time.
我认为有趣的是看到人们如何看待事件实时发生的情况。
Before I read the New York Times, it was always looking back on history, knowing what we know now about how things played out.
在我读《纽约时报》之前，它总是回顾历史，了解我们现在所知道的事情是如何发展的。
And seeing how people interpreted events like the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany in real time, I found enlightening.
看到人们如何实时解读德国纳粹党的崛起等事件，我发现很有启发。
It’s hard to put into words exactly why it’s enlightening, but it gives you a different perspective, I think, even on current events.
很难用语言准确地表达为什么它具有启发性，但我认为它给了你一个不同的视角，即使是对时事的看法。
You think they weren’t panicked enough, or there was a high variance of being panicked?
你认为他们不够恐慌，或者恐慌的差异很大？
How would you describe it?
你会如何描述它？
I think, in the case of the rise of the Nazi Party, there was no awareness of how transformative, in a negative way, the events would be.
我认为，在纳粹党崛起的情况下，人们没有意识到这些事件将带来多么大的变革性和负面影响。
You’d see things in the New York Times like experts expect Hitler to moderate his views as he gets closer to power, and obviously that did not occur.
你会在《纽约时报》上看到一些事情，比如专家预计希特勒在接近权力时会缓和自己的观点，但显然这并没有发生。
Also, in the field of economics, just seeing how policy shocks were interpreted at the time, as compared to how we think of them today — monetary policy decisions by Franklin Roosevelt and the New Deal and so on — I found that very enlightening.
另外，在经济学领域，只要看看当时如何解释政策冲击，与我们今天的看法相比 ——“富兰克林·罗斯福的货币政策决策和新政等等”—— 我就发现这非常有启发性。
When FDR abrogates the gold clause, what was the typical response?
当罗斯福废除黄金条款时，典型的反应是什么？
I think there were different responses, depending on — if you were a conservative finance type in New York, you probably would regard that as an outrageous abuse of power.
我认为会有不同的反应，具体取决于“如果你是纽约的保守派金融人士，你可能会认为这是令人震惊的滥用权力。”
Roosevelt was pretty popular at the time, so he was doing a lot of things.
罗斯福当时很受欢迎，所以他做了很多事情。
I think, overall, his actions were widely popular in the United States, partly just because of the difference from what had happened right before.
我认为，总体而言，他的行为在美国广受欢迎，部分原因在于与之前发生的情况不同。
We’d had four very bleak years under Herbert Hoover.
我们在赫伯特·胡佛的领导下度过了非常黯淡的四年。
The public was ready for, I think it was called, bold and persistent experimentation.
我认为公众已经准备好进行大胆而持久的实验。
Even though some of the actions would have been perhaps regarded as abuse of power in previous period of American history, the public was ready for those kind of decisive actions.
尽管其中一些行为在美国历史上的前一段时期可能会被视为滥用权力，但公众已经准备好采取此类果断行动。
Overall, I think his decisions were relatively popular.
总的来说，我认为他的决定是比较受欢迎的。
On when in history fiat currency became viable
关于历史上法定货币何时变得可行
Now, Sweden at that time, as you well know, had fiat currency and floating exchange rates, and they had a much milder Great Depression.
众所周知，当时的瑞典拥有法定货币和浮动汇率，而且他们经历的大萧条要温和得多。
When is it, in economic history, do you think that it was possible for relatively developed countries to actually just do fiat currency?
在经济史上，你认为相对发达国家什么时候有可能真正只做法币？
It didn’t work during the French Revolution.
它在法国大革命期间不起作用。
There was a monitoring problem, a hyperinflation problem.
存在监控问题、恶性通货膨胀问题。
When did it become the better thing to do?
什么时候它变得更好了？
Wow.
哇。
That’s a hard question.
这是一个很难回答的问题。
I’ve thought about this a lot and never made much progress on it.
我对这个问题思考了很多，但从未取得太大进展。
But I feel in 1830, it was still impossible.
但我觉得在1830年，这仍然是不可能的。
In the ’20s, it’s clearly possible, right?
在20世纪20年代，这显然是可能的，对吧？
Right.
正确的。
How well countries did it is a different matter, but some countries did it well.
各国做得如何是另一回事，但有些国家做得很好。
One way of answering that question is to think about, why didn’t countries move sooner?
回答这个问题的一种方法是思考，为什么各国不早点采取行动？
I think one of the problems is that previous experiences with fiat currency tended to be highly negative.
我认为问题之一是以前使用法定货币的经验往往是非常负面的。
Highly inflationary episodes, most notably the period right after World War I, where a number of European countries, especially Germany, suffered hyperinflation.
高度通货膨胀时期，尤其是第一次世界大战后的时期，许多欧洲国家，特别是德国，遭受了恶性通货膨胀。
At that time, fiat currency was associated with hyperinflation, highly irresponsible monetary policies.
当时，法定货币与恶性通货膨胀、极不负责任的货币政策联系在一起。
Even John Maynard Keynes had very negative things to say about pure fiat currency regimes.
就连约翰·梅纳德·凯恩斯 (John Maynard Keynes) 也对纯法定货币制度提出了非常负面的看法。
He’s today viewed as an opponent of the gold standard, but he didn’t really favor fiat currency.
如今，他被视为金本位制的反对者，但他并不真正青睐法定货币。
He favored something more like a Bretton Woods system with some sort of gold peg that could be adjusted in an emergency.
他更喜欢布雷顿森林体系，带有某种可以在紧急情况下进行调整的金钉子体系。
Because of those negative experiences, it took a tremendous amount of pain before countries were willing to abandon gold and switch over to fiat money.
由于这些负面经历，各国经历了巨大的痛苦才愿意放弃黄金并转向法定货币。
A modern analogy to that might be the situation in Argentina at the end of the 1990s and early 2000s.
现代的类比可能是 20 世纪 90 年代末和 2000 年代初阿根廷的情况。
Argentina went through four very painful years of deflation with the currency board regime.
阿根廷在货币局制度下经历了四年非常痛苦的通货紧缩。
If you wonder, “Well, why didn’t they abandon that sooner, devalue, try to get the economy out of depression?” Argentina had previously had decades of painful history with high inflation.
如果你想知道，“那么，他们为什么不早点放弃这一点，贬值，努力让经济摆脱萧条呢？”阿根廷此前曾经历过数十年的高通胀痛苦历史。
The public was strongly opposed to inflationary fiat money regimes, and they were willing to tough out the currency board for longer than most other modern political systems would have stuck with it.
公众强烈反对通货膨胀的法定货币制度，他们愿意比大多数其他现代政治制度坚持更长时间地坚持货币局。
I think you have to look at the painful experience with fiat currency in the recent past.
我认为你必须看看最近一段时间使用法定货币的痛苦经历。
Remember, the post–World War I hyperinflation in Europe was a recent event for them.
请记住，第一次世界大战后欧洲的恶性通货膨胀对他们来说是最近发生的事件。
I think that colored the views of policymakers in the early 1930s, made them reluctant to move away from fiat until the pain was so intense that politics forced them off of gold standard to fiat money.
我认为这影响了 20 世纪 30 年代初政策制定者的观点，使他们不愿放弃法定货币，直到痛苦如此强烈，以至于政治迫使他们放弃金本位而转向法定货币。
Yes.
是的。
What’s the key missing analytical variable?
缺少的关键分析变量是什么？
At some point, fiat money becomes quite workable.
在某些时候，法定货币变得非常可行。
Is it ease of monitoring the Fed, or is it climate of ideas in society?
是因为美联储的监管容易程度，还是社会的观念氛围？
What is it that was different from what the economists worried about?
这与经济学家担心的有什么不同？
See, I’m not sure it wasn’t even workable in the late 19th century.
看，我不确定这在 19 世纪末是否可行。
It’s very possible that the US political system was responsible enough in the late 19th century to run a fiat money regime with relatively low and stable inflation.
很有可能，美国政治制度在 19 世纪末足够负责任，运行了一个通货膨胀率相对较低且稳定的法定货币制度。
People just didn’t conceive of that as a realistic possibility, or a responsible possibility, until it was tried and it was discovered.
人们只是不认为这是一种现实的可能性，或者一种负责任的可能性，直到它被尝试并被发现。
Here’s another modern example.
这是另一个现代例子。
Remember when Milton Friedman was proposing floating exchange rates?
还记得米尔顿·弗里德曼（Milton Friedman）提出浮动汇率吗？
That’s sort of like an aspect of fiat currency regimes, right?
这有点像法定货币制度的一个方面，对吧？
If each country has its own fiat currency regimes, you’re likely to end up with floating exchange rates.
如果每个国家都有自己的法定货币制度，那么最终可能会出现浮动汇率。
When he proposed that, it was viewed as irresponsible, almost extreme or fringe view of foreign exchange regimes.
当他提出这一建议时，人们认为这是对外汇制度不负责任、近乎极端或边缘的观点。
A couple decades later, it was the norm.
几十年后，这已成为常态。
Sometimes there’s a lot of just inertia in how people think about policy possibilities.
有时，人们对政策可能性的思考存在很多惯性。
Until these new options are tried, they’re simply not viewed as plausible, realistic policy proposals.
在尝试这些新选项之前，它们根本不被视为合理、现实的政策建议。
Was there ever a serious case for bimetallism?
复本位制曾经有过严重的案例吗？
In favor of bimetallism?
支持复本位制？
In favor of it, yes.
赞成它，是的。
Yes, I guess it’s generally viewed as being slightly superior to the gold standard in terms of stabilizing properties.
是的，我想人们普遍认为它在稳定性方面略优于金标准。
I think Milton Friedman thought it was slightly better.
我认为米尔顿·弗里德曼（Milton Friedman）认为这稍微好一些。
There’s also a variant called symmetallism, which is not either/or gold/silver.
还有一种称为对称金属的变体，它不是金/银。
It’s like the medium of account is a weighted average of the two.
这就像记账媒介是两者的加权平均值。
So much gold plus so much silver becomes defined as a dollar.
如此多的黄金加上如此多的白银就被定义为美元。
That also has some advantages.
这也有一些优点。
You could think of inflation targeting as symmetallism going from two commodities to all the commodities in the economy, right?
您可以将通胀目标视为从两种商品到经济中所有商品的同金属主义，对吧？
Under a gold standard, you only stabilize one price, the price of gold.
在金本位制下，只能稳定一个价格，即黄金价格。
Under symmetallism, you stabilize essentially the average of gold and silver prices.
在对称金属论下，黄金和白银价格的平均值基本上稳定。
Under Consumer Price Index targeting, you stabilize the entire average of all prices in the economy.
在消费者价格指数目标下，您可以稳定经济中所有价格的整体平均值。
There’s a continuum from gold all the way up to inflation targeting, and everything in between, including targeting commodity price indices and so on.
There’s a continuum from gold all the way up to inflation targeting, and everything in between, including targeting commodity price indices and so on.
To witness events, monetary or otherwise, to where would you like to go back in time?
见证事件，无论是金钱上的还是其他方面的，您想回到过去的哪里？
Assume you have immunity against disease and you speak the appropriate languages.
假设您对疾病有免疫力并且会说适当的语言。
I would want to go back to Mexico before the Spanish conquest, probably.
我可能想在西班牙征服之前回到墨西哥。
What’s your pick?
你的选择是什么？
Probably not that far back.
可能还没有那么远。
Because of my interest in economic history, I think the period of the 19th and 20th century is the most interesting for me.
由于我对经济史的兴趣，我认为19世纪和20世纪时期对我来说是最有趣的。
I don’t know exactly.
我不太清楚。
The 1890s might be interesting for me, because I don’t know as much about it as the Great Depression, which I studied intensively.
1890 年代对我来说可能很有趣，因为我对它的了解不如大萧条那么多，而我对大萧条进行了深入研究。
But I think the 1890s probably saw some similar dynamics play out as we saw in the Great Depression: hoarding of gold, deflationary period, uncertainty about the stability of the monetary system.
但我认为 1890 年代可能出现了一些与大萧条时期类似的动态：囤积黄金、通货紧缩时期、货币体系稳定性的不确定性。
Going back and seeing that in real time, what were the political issues involved, how did people think about those, that would have been interesting.
回过头来实时查看涉及哪些政治问题，人们如何看待这些问题，这会很有趣。
William Jennings Bryan’s famous speech about the cross of gold was during that period.
威廉·詹宁斯·布莱恩关于黄金十字架的著名演讲就是在那个时期。
You’ve researched extensively the 1920s and ’30s, and you’ve seen a large number of movies from those decades.
您对 20 年代和 30 年代进行了广泛的研究，并且看过这几十年的大量电影。
What do you feel are the biases in the movies?
您认为电影中存在哪些偏见？
What do we get wrong if we only watch the movies?
如果我们只看电影，我们会犯什么错？
A lot of the Hollywood movies from that period are fairly glamorous, because people wanted to escape from the hard times.
那个时期的很多好莱坞电影都相当迷人，因为人们想逃离困难时期。
You’d see these elegant art deco New York City apartments, and obviously conditions were very, very bleak during that period.
你会看到纽约市这些优雅的装饰艺术公寓，显然那段时期的条件非常非常凄凉。
I just watched a TV series called Babylon Berlin, which was in Germany about that time, around 1930.
我刚刚看了一部叫《柏林巴比伦》的电视剧，故事发生在德国，大约是 1930 年左右。
It really portrayed the poverty of that era in a way that you don’t see in Hollywood movies, certainly — the desperation a lot of people felt at that time.
It really portrayed the poverty of that era in a way that you don’t see in Hollywood movies, certainly — the desperation a lot of people felt at that time.
I guess there’s probably cultural differences as well.
我想可能也存在文化差异。
Maybe the culture was more conservative, in some sense, than the image you get from the movies, which is, again, sort of a glamorous, free-spirited cultural scene.
从某种意义上说，也许这种文化比你从电影中获得的形象更为保守，这又是一种迷人、自由奔放的文化场景。
Hollywood is sort of pushing the envelope to entertain people.
好莱坞正在挑战极限来娱乐人们。
The actual views on many cultural issues are probably more conservative than comes across in those films, I would imagine.
我想，对许多文化问题的实际观点可能比这些电影中的观点更为保守。
The reputation of the 1920s is that it was sexually radical.
20 年代以性激进而闻名。
You’ve seen plenty of movies made before the Hays Code, which feel a bit radical in that regard.
你已经看过很多在《海斯法典》之前制作的电影，在这方面感觉有点激进。
What do you think?
你怎么认为？
I think it was only radical relative to what came before, not radical relative to today.
我认为这只是相对于以前而言激进，相对于今天而言并不激进。
Yes, I’m not really an expert on the culture of that period, but my sense is that there were still much more rigid rules about sexual behavior and so on in that period than in the period I grew up in, in the ’60s and ’70s.
是的，我并不是那个时期文化的专家，但我的感觉是，那个时期关于性行为等方面的规定仍然比我成长的那个时期，即60年代和70年代严格得多。
The movies are presenting a certain image that is different from reality.
电影呈现的是某种与现实不同的形象。
I think you recently saw the film Anora, right?
我想你最近看了电影《阿诺拉》，对吧？
I didn’t like it.
我不喜欢它。
I didn’t watch the whole movie.
我没有看完整部电影。
Someone watching that film might get the idea that things are a little bit more free-spirited or crazy in America today than they actually are, right?
Someone watching that film might get the idea that things are a little bit more free-spirited or crazy in America today than they actually are, right?
That’s what the —
这就是 ——
Maybe they are that way.
也许他们就是那样。
We don’t know, do we?
我们不知道，是吗？
Right?
正确的？
You and I maybe aren’t in that scene.
你和我也许不在那个场景中。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
That’s all I could give you on that one.
这就是我能为你提供的一切。
On NGDP targeting
关于 NGDP 目标
Let me ask you some questions about NGDP targeting.
让我问你一些关于 NGDP 目标的问题。
Now, Carl Schmitt, as you know, is an important thinker from the ’20s, and he has the famous saying — it goes something like, “The sovereign is he who decides the exception.” If that is the case, can there ever be a monetary rule at all?
Now, Carl Schmitt, as you know, is an important thinker from the ’20s, and he has the famous saying — it goes something like, “The sovereign is he who decides the exception.”如果是这样的话，还会有货币规则吗？
Whether or not it’s desirable, can we ever get discretion out of the hands of the central bank and Treasury?
无论这是否可取，我们能否将自由裁量权从央行和财政部手中夺走？
Maybe not, but I don’t think that’s really the right way to think about monetary rules.
也许不是，但我认为这并不是思考货币规则的正确方式。
To me, rather than think of either/or, rule versus discretion, think about it in terms of how rule-like is the policy regime?
对我来说，与其考虑规则与自由裁量权之间的非此即彼，不如考虑政策制度的规则程度如何？
We can see, for instance, over the last 30 years or so in the United States, inflation has averaged about 2 percent, and that’s probably mostly because the Fed has decided that’s the appropriate rate of inflation.
We can see, for instance, over the last 30 years or so in the United States, inflation has averaged about 2 percent, and that’s probably mostly because the Fed has decided that’s the appropriate rate of inflation.
That is more rule-like behavior than the previous three decades, where inflation ranged from almost zero in some years to double digit for a considerable period of time.
That is more rule-like behavior than the previous three decades, where inflation ranged from almost zero in some years to double digit for a considerable period of time.
I would say monetary policy has become somewhat more rule-like over the last 30 years, compared to the previous 30 years.
我想说，与之前的 30 年相比，过去 30 年的货币政策在某种程度上变得更加规则化。
And it has the potential to become even more rule-like despite the fact that ultimately, it will never be a perfectly automatic rule because of the influence of politics.
And it has the potential to become even more rule-like despite the fact that ultimately, it will never be a perfectly automatic rule because of the influence of politics.
Let’s say we think of monetary policy as a game between the Fed and Congress, and Congress is always threatening to intervene in the economy, and most of those interventions are ill considered.
Let’s say we think of monetary policy as a game between the Fed and Congress, and Congress is always threatening to intervene in the economy, and most of those interventions are ill considered.
The Fed is not just trying to achieve monetary policy goals, but it’s trying to keep Congress at bay.
美联储不仅试图实现货币政策目标，还试图阻止国会。
One of the reasons why it ends up with more discretion rather than less is to limit Congress.
它最终获得更多而不是更少自由裁量权的原因之一是限制国会。
After the pandemic, or the tail end of the pandemic, the Fed is fairly inflationary, but maybe in part it knows, well, if it doesn’t do something, Congress will.
After the pandemic, or the tail end of the pandemic, the Fed is fairly inflationary, but maybe in part it knows, well, if it doesn’t do something, Congress will.
Is that a useful way to think about some parts of monetary policy, and does it lead us to having to tolerate yet more discretion than we might like?
Is that a useful way to think about some parts of monetary policy, and does it lead us to having to tolerate yet more discretion than we might like?
It’s probably a useful way in some countries, but I think less so in the United States than you might imagine.
在某些国家，这可能是一种有用的方式，但我认为在美国，这种方式没有你想象的那么有用。
I think that what happened in the case of COVID and other monetary policy mistakes, it’s more a question of the Fed just getting things wrong, misjudging the situation.
I think that what happened in the case of COVID and other monetary policy mistakes, it’s more a question of the Fed just getting things wrong, misjudging the situation.
You can imagine countries where the central banks are forced to inflate for political reasons, to accommodate deficit spending, to monetize the debt, but I don’t think that was foremost on the Fed’s mind in terms of the decisions that were made in 2020 and 2021.
You can imagine countries where the central banks are forced to inflate for political reasons, to accommodate deficit spending, to monetize the debt, but I don’t think that was foremost on the Fed’s mind in terms of the decisions that were made in 2020 and 2021.
There had been a shift in the zeitgeist in terms of the way policymakers think about monetary policy after a decade of below-target inflation, and a perception that the Fed had been not expansionary enough during the previous decade.
There had been a shift in the zeitgeist in terms of the way policymakers think about monetary policy after a decade of below-target inflation, and a perception that the Fed had been not expansionary enough during the previous decade.
They were determined to not repeat the mistakes of the recovery from the 2008 and 2009 recession by being more aggressive the next time around.
他们决心不再重蹈 2008 年和 2009 年经济衰退复苏的覆辙，并在下一次采取更加积极的行动。
Now, they ended up being too aggressive, but I think that was actually the view of Powell and the others at the Fed, that they needed to be more aggressive.
现在，他们最终变得过于激进，但我认为这实际上是鲍威尔和美联储其他人的观点，他们需要更加激进。
They needed to try for what are called makeup policies, to explicitly promote above-target inflation for a while to get a quicker recovery.
他们需要尝试所谓的补偿政策，在一段时间内明确推动通胀高于目标，以获得更快的复苏。
I don’t think it was pressure from Congress that pushed them to be as aggressive as they were.
我不认为是来自国会的压力促使他们如此激进。
I don’t think that Congress was going to do a lot of fiscal stimulus, whether they set interest rates at zero or at 1 percent during that period.
我认为国会不会采取大量财政刺激措施，无论他们在此期间将利率设定为零还是 1%。
Congress was determined to push a lot of money out in the economy for a variety of reasons, partly for relief, partly for stimulus reasons.
出于多种原因，国会决心向经济注入大量资金，部分是为了救济，部分是为了刺激。
I don’t think the Fed was foremost on the minds of policymakers in Congress when they made those fiscal decisions.
我认为国会决策者在做出这些财政决策时，首先考虑的并不是美联储。
Say, during the great financial crisis, the Fed knows if it does nothing on the bailout front, Congress will just do more.
比如说，在金融危机期间，美联储知道如果它在救助方面不采取任何行动，国会只会采取更多行动。
And the Fed would rather do it through lending facilities and monetary policy than have Congress get involved, or no?
美联储宁愿通过贷款便利和货币政策来做到这一点，也不愿让国会参与，还是不？
Again, I think the Fed felt that the crisis was very severe and that they needed to do a lot.
我再次认为，美联储认为危机非常严重，他们需要做很多事情。
I think to some extent they did the wrong things.
我认为在某种程度上他们做错了事情。
In terms of their mindset, they were, particularly Ben Bernanke, who was a scholar of the Great Depression, right?
就他们的心态而言，他们是，特别是本伯南克，他是大萧条的学者，对吧？
— he was, in a sense, the perfect person to be in that role — he didn’t want to repeat what he saw as the key mistakes during the early 1930s, allowing the banking system to partially collapse and bring the economy down with it.
— he was, in a sense, the perfect person to be in that role — he didn’t want to repeat what he saw as the key mistakes during the early 1930s, allowing the banking system to partially collapse and bring the economy down with it.
I don’t think, again, they were thinking that much about what Congress might do instead of their actions, but just the crisis right in front of their face that they had to address.
我认为，他们并没有过多考虑国会可能采取的行动，而是考虑了他们必须解决的摆在他们面前的危机。
How did we end up with this one institution, which by your account is so nonpolitical in its decision-making?
我们是如何最终建立这样一个机构的？据您所说，该机构的决策如此非政治性？
That feels quite miraculous, in a way.
从某种程度上来说，这感觉很神奇。
In response to the last few questions, you seem to be saying, “Well, the Fed just does what it thinks is best.” That’s a nice place to be, right?
在回答最后几个问题时，您似乎是在说：“嗯，美联储只是做了它认为最好的事情。”那是个好地方，对吧？
No other part of the government works that way.
政府的其他部门都没有这样做。
How did we get to that?
我们是如何做到这一点的？
I don’t think the Fed always does what it thinks is best on all issues.
我认为美联储并不总是在所有问题上都采取它认为最好的做法。
I think the Fed is somewhat political, or aware of political constraints in many areas of policymaking.
我认为美联储在某种程度上是政治性的，或者说意识到了许多政策制定领域的政治限制。
That would include areas like bank regulation, where they have to think about what Congress wants, and even some of the bailout, which — I would separate unconventional monetary policy bailouts, asset purchases, and so on from more traditional monetary policy that’s just aimed at stabilizing inflation or nominal GDP growth or things like that.
这将包括银行监管等领域，他们必须考虑国会的要求，甚至包括一些救助，这 - 我会将非常规货币政策救助、资产购买等与更传统的货币政策区分开来，这些政策只是为了稳定通货膨胀或名义GDP增长或类似的事情。
It’s the traditional monetary policymaking where I think the Fed is actually trying to achieve an optimal path for spending and inflation over time.
It’s the traditional monetary policymaking where I think the Fed is actually trying to achieve an optimal path for spending and inflation over time.
They believe if they do that, that will also be politically good for them.
他们相信，如果他们这样做，这在政治上也对他们有利。
If things go bad for the economy in either direction, too much inflation or too much recession, the Fed will be criticized and face opposition in Congress.
如果经济向任何一个方向恶化，通货膨胀过高或衰退过多，美联储都将受到批评并面临国会的反对。
If things are going well, like think about the long Greenspan period, where things were going relatively well in terms of the macroeconomy; the Fed’s reputation was pretty high.
如果事情进展顺利，那么想想漫长的格林斯潘时期，宏观经济方面的事情进展得相对顺利；美联储的声誉相当高。
Instead of trying to second-guess, like, “What does Congress want us to do here or there?” the Fed’s actually better off in just achieving good outcomes for the macroeconomy and hoping that that results in their reputation being high among the public and among Congress.
不要试图事后猜测，比如“国会希望我们在这里或那里做什么？”美联储实际上最好的做法是为宏观经济取得良好成果，并希望这能让他们在公众和国会中享有很高的声誉。
When you get to more specific areas like bank regulation, where there’s special interest groups that differ in terms of their political interests, yes, politics does play a role in what the Fed does.
When you get to more specific areas like bank regulation, where there’s special interest groups that differ in terms of their political interests, yes, politics does play a role in what the Fed does.
Perhaps under the new administration, the Fed will back off a little bit on some of the tightening of bank regulation that’s been in the works recently.
也许在新政府的领导下，美联储将在最近实施的一些收紧银行监管措施上有所放松。
There, I think politics does play a role.
我认为政治确实发挥了作用。
I think it plays less of a role in macro policymaking than people might think, with the exception that if you go back in history, yes, you can find examples — Burns and Nixon and so on, President Johnson as well — where pressure was put on the Fed.
我认为它在宏观政策制定中的作用并不像人们想象的那么大，除非你回顾一下历史，是的，你可以找到例子 —— 伯恩斯和尼克松等等，还有约翰逊总统 —— 向美联储施加压力的例子。
That seems to me to be less of a factor in recent decades.
在我看来，近几十年来，这个因素似乎不再那么重要了。
Even under Trump, I don’t think the Fed was pressured that much to change its macroeconomic approach.
即使在特朗普的领导下，我也不认为美联储面临太大的压力来改变其宏观经济方针。
On the causes and response to the 2008 financial crisis
论2008年金融危机的成因及应对
Way back when, I recall Brad DeLong saying something like the following, and here I’m paraphrasing: “Well, stabilizing the growth path of nominal GDP, that could be a good thing.
很久以前，我记得布拉德·德隆说过类似的话，我在这里转述一下：“嗯，稳定名义GDP的增长路径，这可能是一件好事。
What it really means is that we ought to bail out General Motors, because that will make it easier to stabilize nominal GDP without having too high a rate of price inflation.” Do you agree or disagree?
它真正的意思是，我们应该救助通用汽车，因为这将更容易稳定名义GDP，同时又不会导致物价通胀率过高。”你同意还是不同意？
Yes, I disagree with that and pretty much with all similar statements.
是的，我不同意这一点，并且几乎不同意所有类似的说法。
I would even go further: I don’t even think bailing out the financial system was the essential problem we faced in 2008.
我什至会更进一步：我什至不认为救助金融体系是我们 2008 年面临的根本问题。
I believe the financial crisis was mostly a symptom of rapidly falling nominal GDP expectations.
我认为金融危机主要是名义GDP预期迅速下降的一个症状。
In other words, if you stabilize the path of nominal GDP, that takes care of most of the other structural problems in the economy.
换句话说，如果稳定名义GDP的路径，就可以解决经济中的大多数其他结构性问题。
At that point, you have individual companies failing here or there, individual banks that perhaps were poorly managed.
到那时，个别公司到处倒闭，个别银行可能管理不善。
We had Silicon Valley Bank fail recently during an otherwise healthy period in the economy.
最近，在经济原本健康的时期，硅谷银行倒闭了。
Those things happen.
这些事情都会发生。
I don’t think those sectoral shocks are crucial in driving the business cycle.
我不认为这些行业冲击对于推动商业周期至关重要。
As long as the monetary policy keeps the total path of spending along a stable growth path, we can let other policymakers address those issues.
只要货币政策保持支出总量沿着稳定的增长路径前进，我们就可以让其他政策制定者解决这些问题。
Congress can decide if they want to bail out General Motors, for instance.
例如，国会可以决定是否要救助通用汽车公司。
Can’t credit markets break down on their own?
信贷市场不会自行崩溃吗？
Say, today, a large private equity firm turned out to be more leveraged than it seems at the moment, and they became insolvent, and that would be a macroeconomic crisis.
比如说，今天一家大型私募股权公司的杠杆率比现在看起来更高，他们破产了，这将是一场宏观经济危机。
I certainly would agree it would be a good idea to stabilize the expected growth path of nominal GDP, but is any kind of credit market intervention needed?
我当然同意稳定名义GDP的预期增长路径是个好主意，但是否需要任何形式的信贷市场干预？
Again, Congress is not going to do it well.
再说一次，国会不会做得很好。
We know that.
我们知道这一点。
What should monetary policy do?
货币政策应该做什么？
Here, if I told you what it — I’ll tell you in a moment what it should do.
在这里，如果我告诉你它是什么 - 我会立即告诉你它应该做什么。
Some people would interpret my answer as a bailout.
有些人会把我的回答解读为救助。
I don’t think it is a bailout.
我不认为这是救助。
Let me explain.
让我解释一下。
Let’s say there’s a large institution that fails, and it potentially has ripple effects on other parts of the financial system.
假设有一家大型机构倒闭，它可能会对金融体系的其他部分产生连锁反应。
That’s essentially going to lower the equilibrium interest rate in the economy.
这本质上会降低经济的均衡利率。
The Fed, in order to stabilize nominal GDP growth, might have to cut interest rates sharply, and might have to do some QE or whatever, merely to stabilize the path of nominal GDP growth, given that shock.
考虑到这种冲击，为了稳定名义GDP增长，美联储可能不得不大幅降息，并且可能不得不采取一些量化宽松或其他措施，只是为了稳定名义GDP增长的路径。
If they do that, then the ripple effects from the original crisis become far smaller.
如果他们这样做，那么最初危机的连锁反应就会小得多。
I think what happens when people look back at previous financial crises that seem to spread on their own, what they’re missing is the role of the effect on the macroeconomy.
我认为，当人们回顾以往似乎自行蔓延的金融危机时，他们忽略的是危机对宏观经济的影响。
When there is a banking crisis that starts in one place and spreads, the initial crisis might have been due to mistakes made by that individual bank, but the spread across the financial system is usually because the policymakers allowed nominal GDP to fall sharply.
当银行业危机从一个地方开始并蔓延时，最初的危机可能是由于该个别银行所犯的错误造成的，但整个金融体系的蔓延通常是因为政策制定者允许名义GDP大幅下降。
Any sort of decline in nominal GDP that occurs for any reason will tend to make financial crises worse.
名义GDP的任何形式的下降，无论出于何种原因，都可能使金融危机变得更加严重。
We saw this in Argentina in the early 2000s.
2000 年代初我们在阿根廷看到了这一点。
Even in the Great Depression in the United States, when we look back on it, we think of it as like a financial crisis causing a Great Depression.
即使在美国的大萧条时期，当我们回顾它时，我们也会认为它是一场金融危机导致的大萧条。
That’s not actually what happened.
实际情况并非如此。
The Great Depression in the US began in late 1929.
美国的大萧条始于 1929 年底。
The banking system didn’t get into any kind of serious trouble until more than a year later, when the depression was already quite deep.
直到一年多后，银行体系才陷入任何严重的麻烦，当时经济萧条已经相当严重。
The causation clearly ran from falling nominal spending to financial distress.
原因显然是名义支出下降和财务困境。
That shouldn’t be surprising at all, because nominal GDP is the key variable determining the health of the financial system, given that almost all of our financial contracts are nominal contracts.
这一点也不奇怪，因为名义 GDP 是决定金融体系健康状况的关键变量，因为我们几乎所有的金融合同都是名义合同。
Think of the total nominal income in the economy as the resources that people, companies, and even governments have to repay their debts.
将经济中的名义总收入视为人们、公司甚至政府必须偿还债务的资源。
If that falls sharply, you will have a lot of financial distress.
如果急剧下降，您将面临很大的财务困境。
On the other hand, if there’s a financial crisis, and that lowers the equilibrium interest rate, and policymakers don’t respond appropriately, nominal GDP will fall, the crisis will get worse, and it’ll look to the average person like the crisis is just building on itself.
另一方面，如果发生金融危机，导致均衡利率下降，而政策制定者没有采取适当的应对措施，名义GDP就会下降，危机就会变得更严重，在普通人看来，危机就会自行加剧。
An analogy I sometimes use is like a cold that turns into pneumonia.
我有时会用一个比喻，就像感冒变成肺炎。
It starts as one illness.
它始于一种疾病。
It might seem to a person like it’s just a bad cold, but actually the nature of the illness has changed.
对于一个人来说，这似乎只是一场重感冒，但实际上疾病的性质已经发生了变化。
This is what often happens in these periods of financial crisis combined with falling nominal GDP.
这是在金融危机和名义GDP下降的时期经常发生的情况。
It starts with one type of problem, financial distress, and it turns into a very different type of crisis when nominal GDP falls sharply, because of all these nominal debt contracts.
它始于一种类型的问题，即金融困境，当名义国内生产总值因所有这些名义债务合同而急剧下降时，它会变成一种非常不同类型的危机。
If the Fed had listened to you during the great financial crisis, what would have been the rate of price inflation in 2009, roughly?
如果美联储在金融危机期间听取了您的意见，那么 2009 年的物价通胀率大约会是多少？
I think it would have been a little bit higher than the Fed’s target, but not a lot higher.
我认为它会比美联储的目标高一点，但不会高很多。
Say real GDP was going to fall by 2 percent.
假设实际 GDP 将下降 2%。
You see, that’s what I don’t accept.
你看，这就是我不接受的。
See, I believe that the fall in real GDP was mostly due to the fall in nominal GDP.
看，我认为实际GDP的下降主要是由于名义GDP的下降。
We know that the trend rate of growth in nominal GDP had been 5 percent a year going into the slump, and it fell to -3.
我们知道，在经济衰退期间，名义 GDP 的趋势增长率为每年 5%，后来降至-3。
It’s like an eight-point decline in the growth rate.
这就像增长率下降了八个百分点。
Now, in a counterfactual where they keep nominal GDP growing at 5 percent a year, let’s say, most of the difference shows up in stronger real growth, and only a small part of the difference shows up in higher inflation.
现在，在一个反事实的情况下，他们保持名义GDP每年增长5%，比如说，大部分差异表现为更强劲的实际增长，只有一小部分差异表现为更高的通胀。
The inflation rate in 2009 was actually around zero.
2009年的通货膨胀率实际上为零左右。
It might have been no more than 2 percent or 3 percent, if nominal growth had been that much higher.
如果名义增长率高得多的话，可能不会超过 2% 或 3%。
Real growth might have been 5 percent higher.
实际增长率可能高出 5%。
This is a point where I think I disagree with you, even though I agree with much of what you’ve said up until now.
在这一点上，我认为我不同意你的观点，尽管我同意你到目前为止所说的大部分内容。
I worry that by attributing the decline in real GDP to a decline in nominal GDP, that it’s on the verge of being tautologous.
我担心，将实际 GDP 的下降归因于名义 GDP 的下降，这几乎是一种同义反复。
Not a literal tautology, given prices don’t move that much — that you’re explaining a thing by itself, and I think it would have been quite possible for real GDP to fall by a few percent.
这不是字面上的同义反复，因为价格波动幅度不大——你是在单独解释一件事，而且我认为实际 GDP 很可能会下降几个百分点。
If we had stabilized the growth path of nominal GDP, we would have had price inflation of, say, 5 percent, which I would have greatly preferred to what we did, to be clear.
如果我们稳定了名义 GDP 的增长路径，那么我们的物价通胀率就会达到 5%，澄清一下，我更希望这样做。
I think it’s one reason why central banks are reluctant to institute your kind of advice, because they know they’ll be blamed for a price inflation rate of 5 percent.
我认为这就是央行不愿意采纳你的建议的原因之一，因为他们知道自己会因 5% 的物价通胀率而受到指责。
Do you see what I’m saying?
你明白我在说什么吗？
I see what you’re saying, but I think that, in a way, your instincts that it’s almost tautological reflect the fact that you sort of buy into what I’m saying about the interrelationship between real and nominal shocks.
我明白你在说什么，但我认为，在某种程度上，你认为这几乎是同义反复的直觉反映了这样一个事实：你有点相信我所说的关于实际冲击和名义冲击之间的相互关系。
We both know that they’re not necessarily at all closely correlated, right?
我们都知道它们不一定密切相关，对吗？
In 2008 and 2009, Zimbabwe had a recession and a hyperinflation at the same time.
2008年和2009年，津巴布韦同时经历了经济衰退和恶性通货膨胀。
Their nominal and real economies are going in dramatically different directions.
它们的名义经济和实际经济正朝着截然不同的方向发展。
We also know that real and nominal variables are radically different variables.
我们还知道，实际变量和名义变量是完全不同的变量。
When our instincts tell us that there’s something tautological about the correlation between real and nominal GDP in the United States, it’s because our instincts have recognized the fact that, in fact, most of the US business cycle is due to nominal shocks interacting with sticky wages.
当我们的直觉告诉我们，美国实际 GDP 和名义 GDP 之间的相关性存在某种同义反复时，这是因为我们的直觉已经认识到这样一个事实：事实上，美国商业周期的大部分都是由名义冲击与粘性工资相互作用造成的。
If that hypothesis is true, that model of the business cycle is true for the United States but not for Zimbabwe, then what it’s telling us is that if we can control nominal GDP growth, probably the path of real GDP will also be more stable.
如果这个假设成立，那么这种商业周期模型对于美国是正确的，但对于津巴布韦则不然，那么它告诉我们的是，如果我们能够控制名义GDP增长，那么实际GDP的路径可能也会更加稳定。
Now, it’s possible that we do succeed in stabilizing nominal GDP growth, and we find out it doesn’t help.
现在，我们可能确实成功地稳定了名义GDP增长，但我们发现这并没有什么帮助。
But there’s an awful lot of circumstantial evidence to support my claim, because we observe, for instance, in the United States that when nominal GDP is more volatile, so is real GDP.
但有大量间接证据支持我的主张，因为我们观察到，例如，在美国，当名义 GDP 波动更大时，实际 GDP 波动也更大。
That’s one thing we know.
这是我们知道的一件事。
We also know that some of the volatility of nominal GDP comes from very clear monetary policy mistakes that have been made at various periods of time that can be clearly identified.
我们还知道，名义GDP的一些波动来自于不同时期所犯的非常明显的货币政策错误，这些错误可以被清楚地识别。
When we see this show up in similar movements in real output, there’s just a strong presumption that there’s a causal relationship there.
当我们看到这种情况出现在实际产出的类似变动中时，我们就可以强烈地假设其中存在因果关系。
Financial markets also seem to treat it like there’s a causal relationship.
金融市场似乎也将其视为因果关系。
Financial market responses to Federal Reserve policy shocks seem to reflect a view in the financial markets that these things are important for the real economy.
金融市场对美联储政策冲击的反应似乎反映了金融市场的一种观点，即这些事情对实体经济很重要。
I think my view would be, when you get a very bad recession, it’s typically the combination of negative nominal shocks and significant negative real shocks, often to credit markets.
我认为我的观点是，当经济衰退非常严重时，通常是负面名义冲击和重大负面实际冲击的结合，通常是对信贷市场的冲击。
The negative real shocks are not just an epiphenomenon or result of the nominal problem mixed with sticky wages.
负面的实际冲击不仅仅是名义问题与粘性工资混合在一起的附带现象或结果。
You have both happening, and the credit market problems don’t just go away if you do your nominal job.
两者都发生了，而且如果你做好你名义上的工作，信贷市场问题并不会消失。
Then you get back to these situations where you’ll need a fairly high rate of price inflation to stabilize the growth path of nominal GDP.
然后你又回到了这些情况，你需要相当高的价格通胀率来稳定名义GDP的增长路径。
You just think credit market shocks are not that important?
您只是认为信贷市场冲击没那么重要吗？
Like what Charles Kindleberger wrote, you wouldn’t really agree with that economic history?
就像查尔斯·金德尔伯格（Charles Kindleberger）所写的那样，你不会真的同意这段经济史吗？
Or how should I frame your view here?
或者我应该如何在这里阐述你的观点？
Yes, I think the financial market problems are mostly a symptom.
是的，我认为金融市场问题主要是一个症状。
Here’s another example I could give you: At the beginning of the 2008 recession, the view in Europe was that America was paying a price for our reckless cowboy capitalism, deregulation of banking, less stable financial system than in Europe.
我可以举另一个例子：在 2008 年经济衰退之初，欧洲的观点是，美国正在为鲁莽的牛仔资本主义、银行业放松管制以及不如欧洲稳定的金融体系付出代价。
There was almost a little bit of gloating in some quarters in Europe at that time.
当时欧洲一些地方几乎存在一丝幸灾乐祸的情绪。
Now, we now know that the Great Recession ended up being much worse in Europe than the United States.
现在，我们知道，欧洲的大衰退最终比美国严重得多。
Let’s say the standard view is correct, that the Great Recession was caused by the American housing bubble combined with the banking crisis.
假设标准观点是正确的，即大衰退是由美国房地产泡沫和银行业危机共同造成的。
The recession should have been much worse in the United States.
美国的经济衰退本来应该更严重。
We’re the ones that had the big subprime crisis.
我们是经历了严重的次贷危机的人。
That was what was expected in early 2008.
这是 2008 年初的预期。
The recession was going to be much worse in the US than in Europe.
美国的经济衰退将比欧洲严重得多。
Here’s one difference: Monetary policy in Europe was clearly tighter throughout 2008 than the US.
有一个区别：2008 年欧洲的货币政策明显比美国更紧缩。
The ECB was much more hawkish than the Bernanke Fed.
欧洲央行比伯南克联储更加鹰派。
That led to the recession being more severe in Europe.
这导致欧洲经济衰退更加严重。
In addition, two years later, in 2011, the Europeans got spooked by rising commodity prices and a pickup in inflation, which was a little bit misleading because nominal growth was very weak still.
此外，两年后的2011年，欧洲人对大宗商品价格上涨和通胀上升感到震惊，这有点误导，因为名义增长仍然非常疲软。
They tightened monetary policy twice in early 2011.
2011年初，他们两次收紧货币政策。
They had a double-dip recession.
他们经历了双底衰退。
The financial problems ended up being more severe in Europe than the United States.
欧洲的金融问题最终比美国更为严重。
They were more severe because the path of nominal GDP was much more unfavorable in Europe compared to the United States, even though the United States did not do particularly well.
它们更为严厉，因为与美国相比，欧洲的名义GDP走势更为不利，尽管美国的表现并不是特别好。
I think that, again and again, when you look at these cases where there’s some sort of monetary policy mistake — America in 1929, Argentina in the late 1990s — you see the monetary policy mistake occurring first, in an otherwise healthy economy; then you see the financial crisis developing as nominal GDP is falling sharply.
我认为，当你一次又一次地审视这些存在某种货币政策错误的案例时——“1929 年的美国，20 世纪 90 年代末的阿根廷”——你会发现货币政策错误首先发生在原本健康的经济中；然后，货币政策的错误首先发生在一个原本健康的经济中；然后，货币政策的错误首先发生在一个健康的经济体中。然后你就会看到金融危机随着名义GDP的急剧下降而发展。
There are other occasions, like 2008, where the financial distress occurs first.
还有其他一些场合，比如 2008 年，财务困境首先发生。
This is why I believe it gets misdiagnosed.
这就是为什么我认为它会被误诊。
Because the financial distress occurs first, people think that everything that happened afterwards was an implication of just a worsening financial crisis, whereas what actually happened is the financial crisis causes changes in the equilibrium interest rate that the Fed misjudges.
由于金融危机先发生，人们认为随后发生的一切只是金融危机恶化的结果，而实际上发生的是金融危机导致了美联储误判的均衡利率的变化。
Policy gets off course.
政策偏离轨道。
Because it’s off course, aggregate demand falls sharply.
因为偏离了轨道，总需求急剧下降。
That is the factor that actually worsens the financial crisis as you get deeper into the process.
当你深入了解这个过程时，这实际上是导致金融危机恶化的因素。
On China’s monetary policy
关于中国的货币政策
Now, in very late 2024, I was reading a Wall Street Journal article that reported on how many different price indices in China were showing deflation, sustained deflation.
现在，在 2024 年末，我正在阅读《华尔街日报》的一篇文章，其中报道了中国有多少不同的价格指数显示出通货紧缩，持续的通货紧缩。
This is considered to be bad for the Chinese economy.
这被认为对中国经济不利。
Chinese aren’t stupid.
中国人并不傻。
They have a sophisticated central bank.
他们有一个成熟的中央银行。
Why is China tolerating this?
中方为何容忍此事？
Why don’t they end the deflation with a more activist monetary policy?
他们为什么不采取更加积极的货币政策来结束通货紧缩？
Okay.
好的。
Good question.
好问题。
First of all, the deflation they’re going through, I would argue, is very similar to the deflation they went through in the late ’90s and early 2000s.
首先，我认为，他们正在经历的通货紧缩与他们在 90 年代末和 2000 年代初经历的通货紧缩非常相似。
It’s due to the Chinese government being reluctant to weaken the currency sufficiently in the foreign exchange market to maintain positive inflation.
这是因为中国政府不愿意在外汇市场上充分削弱货币以维持正通胀。
That reluctance seems to be partly due to political reasons, but as you know, governments around the world have traditionally viewed the exchange rate as a very important variable.
这种不情愿的部分原因似乎是出于政治原因，但如您所知，世界各国政府传统上都将汇率视为非常重要的变量。
If you focus on a certain set of goals for your exchange rate, you’re inevitably going to let go of your ability to control macroeconomic aggregates like nominal GDP and inflation.
如果你专注于一组特定的汇率目标，你将不可避免地放弃控制名义GDP和通胀等宏观经济总量的能力。
The most extreme example of that is Hong Kong, which has pegged their currency to the dollar for 40 years.
最极端的例子是香港，其货币与美元挂钩已有 40 年之久。
Essentially, the Hong Kong business cycle and the periods of deflation in Hong Kong are completely correlated with the strength of the US dollar.
本质上，香港的商业周期和通货紧缩时期与美元的强势完全相关。
If we go back to the late 1990s, most countries in East Asia devalued sharply.
如果我们回到20世纪90年代末，大多数东亚国家的货币都大幅贬值。
There was a severe crisis.
出现了严重的危机。
China did not.
中国没有。
The consequence of China’s decision not to devalue when all its competitor countries were devaluing was deflation.
当所有竞争对手国家都在贬值时，中国决定不贬值，其后果就是通货紧缩。
That was a political decision they made.
这是他们做出的政治决定。
More recently, China has allowed a little bit of weakening of the yuan, but not nearly to the extent that you see in places like Japan.
最近，中国允许人民币小幅贬值，但还没有达到日本等地的程度。
Japan, despite large depreciation in the Japanese yen, has still only suffered very mild inflation.
日本尽管日元大幅贬值，但通胀仍然非常温和。
In China, where the currency is much stronger than in Japan, you get outright deflation.
在中国，货币比日本坚挺得多，因此会出现彻底的通货紧缩。
It’s a question of prioritizing exchange rate over macroeconomic stability that leads to these kind of unfavorable outcomes in terms of inflation.
这是一个将汇率置于宏观经济稳定之上的问题，导致了通货膨胀方面的不利结果。
Any time you prioritize any variable above your core goal of either inflation targeting or nominal GDP targeting, you will end up with negative outcomes.
任何时候，只要你将任何变量的优先级置于通胀目标或名义 GDP 目标的核心目标之上，你最终都会得到负面结果。
Why don’t the Chinese just give up the exchange rate target?
为什么中国不放弃汇率目标呢？
On your account, it sounds like a big mistake.
从你的角度来看，这听起来像是一个很大的错误。
You’re saying they’re stupid in a sense, right?
你是说他们在某种意义上很愚蠢，对吗？
They don’t import that much, so it’s not going to be a problem there.
他们进口的量不多，所以不会成为问题。
It would help their exporters marginally.
这对他们的出口商有一定帮助。
It certainly wouldn’t hurt them.
这当然不会伤害他们。
Why not just push the button and do what Scott Sumner says?
为什么不按下按钮并按照斯科特·萨姆纳所说的去做呢？
I’ll give you an example.
我给你举个例子。
I hope I get the facts right on this.
我希望我能了解正确的事实。
In the early 2000s, there was a lot of criticism from American economists like, “Why don’t the Japanese just devalue the yen if they want to create inflation?
2000年代初，美国经济学家提出了很多批评，比如“如果日本想制造通货膨胀，为什么不让日元贬值呢？
They can get out of the liquidity trap.” At the very time the economists were making this suggestion to the Japanese, Treasury officials were putting a lot of pressure on Japan not to depreciate the Japanese yen, with the implied threat of protectionist response if they did.
他们可以摆脱流动性陷阱。”就在经济学家向日本人提出这一建议的同时，财政部官员正在向日本施加很大压力，要求其不要让日元贬值，并暗示如果他们这么做，将采取保护主义措施。
You can argue that essentially, to the extent that the US is able to influence Japanese policymakers, we may have pressured Japan into a long period of deflation by discouraging them from devaluing the yen in a way that would have been required to get Japan out of deflation in the ’90s and early 2000s.
你可以说，本质上，就美国能够影响日本政策制定者的程度而言，我们可能会通过阻止日元贬值来迫使日本陷入长期通货紧缩，而这正是日本在 20 世纪 90 年代和 2000 年代初摆脱通货紧缩所必需的。
I can only speculate, but maybe part of the reason is fear of the way the US would respond with protectionist measures if there was a sharp fall in the yuan.
我只能推测，但也许部分原因是担心如果人民币大幅贬值，美国会采取保护主义措施。
Now, I’m not certain that’s the case, and I’m not certain that China is making the right decision.
现在，我不确定情况是否如此，我也不确定中国是否做出了正确的决定。
On balance, I think they’d be better off allowing a little more weakness in their currency.
总的来说，我认为他们最好允许本国货币进一步走软。
I’m not exactly certain all of the reasons why.
我不太确定所有原因。
It could reflect different interest groups within China, some of which benefit from a strong currency, some from a weak currency.
它可能反映了中国内部不同的利益集团，其中一些利益集团受益于强势货币，一些利益集团受益于弱势货币。
I don’t know enough about the Chinese situation, but if you’re asking me, does China have the ability to get out of deflation with a weaker currency?
我对中国的情况不太了解，但如果你问我，中国有能力在货币贬值的情况下摆脱通货紧缩吗？
Yes, they do.
是的，他们确实这么做了。
They have that ability.
他们有这个能力。
I don’t think there’s even any question.
我认为没有任何问题。
One economist, Lars Svensson, called currency depreciation a foolproof way of escaping a liquidity trap.
经济学家拉尔斯·斯文森 (Lars Svensson) 称，货币贬值是逃离流动性陷阱的万无一失的方法。
You can always weaken a currency and create inflation under a fiat money system if you’re determined to do so.
如果你决心这样做，你总是可以削弱货币并在法定货币体系下制造通货膨胀。
If you haven’t done so, there is some sort of political barrier to taking the steps that would be required.
如果您还没有这样做，那么采取所需步骤就会遇到某种政治障碍。
Or there’s simply a cognitive error like you’re not thinking about the problem in the right way, which has also been an enormous problem in monetary economics because of confusion about what low interest rates mean and other things about monetary policy that confuse even policymakers, often, into thinking their policy stance is different from what it actually is.
或者只是一种认知错误，比如你没有以正确的方式思考问题，这也是货币经济学中的一个巨大问题，因为人们对低利率的含义和货币政策的其他事情感到困惑，甚至经常让政策制定者感到困惑，认为他们的政策立场与实际情况不同。
Let me give you an alternative hypothesis, and tell me what you think of it.
让我给你一个替代假设，并告诉我你的想法。
This is for China.
这是针对中国的。
Their banking system is radically undercapitalized.
他们的银行系统资本严重不足。
They keep on shoveling money into it.
他们继续往里面塞钱。
A lot of their credit channels are broken.
他们的很多信贷渠道都被打破了。
They believe a more activist monetary policy won’t work through credit channels.
他们认为更加积极的货币政策不会通过信贷渠道发挥作用。
They do in fact know they could get higher price inflation by doing something like printing up currency, but they don’t feel they can control that process because they don’t have a good theory of how their own monetary base relates to their own price level.
事实上，他们确实知道通过印制货币等措施可以提高物价通胀，但他们认为自己无法控制这一过程，因为他们没有很好的理论来说明自己的货币基础与物价水平之间的关系。
And they’re afraid to do that, somewhat justifiably, and that’s why they keep on suffering under deflation.
他们害怕这样做，这在某种程度上是有道理的，这就是为什么他们继续遭受通货紧缩之苦。
Okay.
好的。
Good question.
好问题。
I think you could have made a similar argument about Japan, say, 12 years ago, right before Abe took office, and Japan had suffered a long period of deflation.
我认为你可以对日本做出类似的论点，比如说12年前，就在安倍上台之前，日本经历了长期的通货紧缩。
There were problems in the banking system and so on, so it was easy to view the Japanese situation in some sense as structural and to blame it on whatever demographics or whatever you want to point to.
银行体系等存在问题，因此很容易将日本的情况在某种意义上视为结构性的，并将其归咎于任何人口统计数据或任何你想指出的东西。
Abe ran for office on a platform of inflation.
安倍以通货膨胀为竞选纲领。
He promised higher inflation, and by the way, that’s worth thinking about because of all the recent discussion about how unpopular inflation is.
他承诺更高的通胀率，顺便说一句，这值得考虑，因为最近所有关于通胀如何不受欢迎的讨论。
Roosevelt in the 1930s also ran on higher inflation and was very popular on that platform.
20 世纪 30 年代的罗斯福也依靠较高的通货膨胀率竞选，并在该政纲上很受欢迎。
Abe runs for office in 2012 on a platform of high inflation — sorry, not high, but say up to 3 percent a year — and things do improve in Japan under his changes in monetary policy.
安倍晋三在 2012 年竞选公职时提出了高通胀——“抱歉，不高，但据说每年高达 3%”——而且在他的货币政策改变下，日本的情况确实有所改善。
I think that that’s a piece of evidence in favor of the view that these problems that look structural actually have a deeper cause, and that is a failure of monetary policy to achieve the desired objective.
我认为这是支持这样一种观点的证据：这些看似结构性的问题实际上有更深层次的原因，那就是货币政策未能实现预期目标。
A lot of times — I know that the mistake theory is unpopular among intellectuals — certain policy is in effect because policymakers just don’t understand things.
很多时候 ——我知道错误理论在知识分子中不受欢迎 ——某些政策之所以有效，是因为政策制定者不了解事情。
It’s much more fashionable to view dysfunctional policies like tariffs as reflecting, say, special interest politics of one sort or another, but I think monetary policy is different.
更流行的观点是，关税等功能失调的政策反映了某种特殊利益政治，但我认为货币政策是不同的。
I think monetary policy is one area where mistakes actually do occur fairly often, and you get outcomes that governments actually don’t want because they’re not thinking about the situation in the correct way.
我认为货币政策是一个实际上经常发生错误的领域，而且你会得到政府实际上不想要的结果，因为他们没有以正确的方式考虑情况。
And even the policymakers themselves have often failed to really understand the nature of the problem.
甚至政策制定者本身也常常未能真正理解问题的本质。
It’s sort of an Alice in Wonderland world where things look one way but are very different.
这有点像爱丽丝梦游仙境的世界，事物看起来是一种方式，但实际上却非常不同。
Like, high interest rates look like tight money and low interest rates look like easy money, but often, low interest rates are actually reflective of a previous tight money policy that’s created deflation.
比如，高利率看起来像是紧缩的货币，低利率看起来像是宽松的货币，但通常情况下，低利率实际上反映了之前造成通货紧缩的紧缩货币政策。
In that upside-down world where it’s hard to really understand the meaning of policy indicators, it’s easy to make mistakes.
在这个颠倒的世界里，很难真正理解政策指标的含义，很容易犯错误。
As you know, there’s currently a debate now between Keynesians and what are called Neo-Fisherians about whether low interest rates are easy money or tight money.
如你所知，目前凯恩斯主义者和所谓的新费舍尔主义者之间正在争论低利率是宽松货币还是紧缩货币。
You’d think a basic question like that would have been settled decades ago in the field of economics.
你可能会认为这样的基本问题几十年前就可以在经济学领域得到解决。
If it’s that confusing to even high-level theorists, why should we expect policymakers at central banks to always get these decisions right?
如果连高级理论家都感到困惑，为什么我们应该期望央行的政策制定者总是做出正确的决定呢？
On never reasoning from price changes
永远不要根据价格变化进行推理
I have a very different question, and this is from a reader.
我有一个非常不同的问题，这是来自一位读者。
I’m paraphrasing: Scott Sumner’s mantra “Never reason from a price change” is perhaps his best contribution to economic thinking.
我解释一下：斯科特·萨姆纳的格言“永远不要从价格变化中推理”也许是他对经济思想的最佳贡献。
Are you the one who came up with this, and when did you first use it?
您是想出这个方法的人吗？您第一次使用它是什么时候？
I don’t remember when I first used it, but I’ll tell you a story on this.
我不记得第一次使用它是什么时候，但我会告诉你一个关于它的故事。
I think I started mentioning this phrase 10 or 15 years ago, either to my class when I was teaching at Bentley College or in my blog.
我想我是在 10 或 15 年前开始提到这句话的，无论是在本特利学院任教时在课堂上还是在我的博客中。
But when I thought back on my early career in academia and my research, I realized that I’d actually been thinking about this all along.
但当我回想起我早期的学术生涯和研究时，我意识到我实际上一直在思考这个问题。
I did a paper in 1989 with Steve Silver on real wages.
1989 年，我与 Steve Silver 合作发表了一篇关于实际工资的论文。
It’s in the JPE.
它在 JPE 中。
It’s basically a paper that looks at the question of real wage cyclicality and criticizes the previous literature as reasoning from a price change.
它基本上是一篇研究实际工资周期性问题的论文，并批评以前的文献是根据价格变化进行推理的。
There was this debate about whether real wages were procyclical or countercyclical, and we ended up with a view that real wages are countercyclical when there’s demand shocks and procyclical when there’s supply shocks driving the price level.
关于实际工资是顺周期还是反周期存在争论，我们最终得出这样的观点：当存在需求冲击时，实际工资是反周期的；当存在供应冲击推动价格水平时，实际工资是顺周期的。
It isn’t just “Don’t reason from an individual price change,” it’s “Don’t reason from a price level change.” Like, don’t ever talk about whether inflation is popular or unpopular without thinking about whether it’s supply- or demand-side inflation or whether it’s inflation trying to get out of deflation.
这不仅仅是“不要根据单个价格变化进行推理”，而是“不要根据价格水平变化进行推理”。就像，永远不要在不考虑通胀是供给侧通胀还是需求侧通胀，或者是试图摆脱通货紧缩的通胀的情况下谈论通胀是受欢迎还是不受欢迎。
Don’t reason from an interest rate change.
不要根据利率变化进行推理。
Never say “The interest rate went up, therefore this will happen,” or “The exchange rate depreciated, therefore this will happen,” because the impact of those price changes always depends on what’s driving the change.
永远不要说“利率上升，因此会发生这种情况”或“汇率贬值，因此会发生这种情况”，因为这些价格变化的影响始终取决于推动变化的因素。
Is the interest rate changing because of the liquidity effect or the Fisher effect or the income effect and so on?
利率变化是因为流动性效应还是费雪效应或者收入效应等等？
I actually have been thinking about this since the late 1980s, but I didn’t really come up with that phrase until more recently.
事实上，我从 20 世纪 80 年代末就开始思考这个问题，但直到最近我才真正想出这个词。
And once I started thinking in those terms, I started to see this mistake appearing in all sorts of contexts and probably even myself — I’ve reasoned from a price change at various times, and I’ve seen prominent economists make statements that to me seemed to be an example of this fallacy.
一旦我开始用这些术语思考，我开始看到这个错误出现在各种情况下，甚至可能出现在我自己身上 ——我在不同时期从价格变化中进行推理，而且我看到著名经济学家的陈述在我看来似乎是这种谬论的一个例子。
On movies
关于电影
Now, you might be my favorite movie critic of all time since you are, in my opinion, always correct, so I have a few questions about film.
现在，你可能是我一直以来最喜欢的影评人，因为在我看来，你总是正确的，所以我有一些关于电影的问题。
What’s your general process for discovering movies to watch?
您发现可看电影的一般流程是怎样的？
How do you decide?
你如何决定？
Well, first of all, I can’t always be correct because sometimes I change my mind about films.
好吧，首先，我不可能总是正确的，因为有时我会改变对电影的看法。
I don’t actually feel like —
我其实并不觉得 ——
Maybe I do too.
也许我也是。
Well, just the way my brain is wired, I’m much better at visual things than at verbal things.
嗯，就像我的大脑构造一样，我更擅长视觉事物而不是语言事物。
Probably listeners can already suspect that.
也许听众已经可以怀疑这一点了。
When I look at film, I’m focusing mostly on the visual aspect of the film.
当我看电影时，我主要关注电影的视觉方面。
That’s sort of hard to put into words.
这有点难以用语言表达。
I think that a lot of people tend to look at film from the perspective of a screenplay.
我认为很多人倾向于从剧本的角度来看待电影。
It’s sometimes said that cinema is about cinematography and TV is about screenplays.
有时有人说电影是关于摄影的，而电视是关于剧本的。
Right?
正确的？
People that are really interested in film tend to like movies a lot better than TV shows because the visual aspect comes to the fore.
真正对电影感兴趣的人往往比电视节目更喜欢电影，因为视觉方面脱颖而出。
That’s what I look for in a film, is something that is visually interesting, that expresses artistic ideas in a visually compelling way, but I find it difficult to put into words exactly what that quality is because it’s just sort of intangible.
这就是我在电影中寻找的东西，是一种视觉上有趣的东西，以一种视觉上引人注目的方式表达艺术理念，但我发现很难用语言准确地表达这种品质是什么，因为它只是一种无形的东西。
You know it when you see it.
当你看到它时你就知道了。
Like there are certain directors that in the first 30 seconds of the film, you just see their signature visual style.
就像某些导演一样，在电影的前 30 秒，你就能看到他们标志性的视觉风格。
A Wes Anderson film has a very distinctive visual style, David Lynch, and so on, but it isn’t just visuals.
韦斯·安德森的电影有非常独特的视觉风格，大卫·林奇等等，但不仅仅是视觉。
It’s the way visuals are combined with music and editing and dialogue that has made film such a rich art form during the 20th century especially.
正是视觉效果与音乐、剪辑和对话相结合的方式，使得电影在 20 世纪成为一种如此丰富的艺术形式。
It combines all these things in a way that some other art forms by comparison seem a little more one-dimensional.
它将所有这些东西结合起来，相比之下其他一些艺术形式似乎更加一维。
I’m a big fan of all the visual arts including painting, but I think painting as an art form was kind of played out by the early 20th century.
我是包括绘画在内的所有视觉艺术的忠实粉丝，但我认为绘画作为一种艺术形式在 20 世纪初就已经结束了。
At least the visual ideas were exhausted and then goes into conceptual art and so on.
至少视觉创意被耗尽，然后进入概念艺术等等。
Film, because it has all these different aspects combined together, was a very dynamic art form throughout much of the 20th century.
电影由于将所有这些不同的方面结合在一起，在 20 世纪的大部分时间里都是一种非常活跃的艺术形式。
I think that’s what especially drew me to film.
我想这就是特别吸引我拍电影的原因。
Which is the best Hitchcock movie?
希区柯克最好的电影是哪部？
Well, my favorite is Vertigo.
嗯，我最喜欢的是《眩晕》。
That’s not necessarily better in an artistic sense than, say, Rear Window or some of his other classics.
从艺术意义上来说，这并不一定比《后窗》或他的其他一些经典作品更好。
I think Vertigo is Hitchcock’s maybe most personal film, where Jimmy Stewart is sort of a stand-in for Hitchcock, in a sense, right?
我认为《迷魂记》可能是希区柯克最具个人色彩的电影，从某种意义上说，吉米·斯图尔特在某种程度上是希区柯克的替身，对吧？
As I recall the plot, Jimmy Stewart is at some point trying to sort of mold or reshape this woman into this dream woman he had met earlier.
当我回忆起这个情节时，吉米·斯图尔特在某种程度上试图将这个女人塑造或重塑为他之前遇到的梦想女人。
Hitchcock, as a director, is also sort of trying to do that same thing and maybe failing in the end.
作为一名导演，希区柯克也在尝试做同样的事情，但最终可能会失败。
It seems like Vertigo is, in some sense, a critique of a certain aspect of a masculine personality.
从某种意义上说，《眩晕》似乎是对男性人格某一方面的批判。
It just seems to be more of a serious, deep film than a lot of Hitchcock films, which are brilliant films but are made to be kind of light entertainment in many cases.
与许多希区柯克电影相比，它似乎更像是一部严肃、有深度的电影，希区柯克的电影虽然很精彩，但在很多情况下都被制作成一种轻松的娱乐。
Does that make sense?
这有道理吗？
Yes, absolutely.
是的，绝对是。
For me, it’s Vertigo and Rear Window, so on that, I suppose we agree.
对我来说，是《迷魂记》和《后窗》，所以在这一点上，我想我们同意。
Yes.
是的。
I like Rope very much.
我非常喜欢绳子。
I wouldn’t put it at the top, but it’s one of the most underrated ones, and Trouble with Harry, also, I’m very fond of.
我不会把它放在首位，但它是最被低估的之一，而《哈利的麻烦》也是我非常喜欢的。
That whole era was his peak period, I believe, although he was excellent for a long time.
我相信整个时代都是他的巅峰期，尽管他在很长一段时间内都很优秀。
I’m never sure which are the deep Hitchcock movies, though.
不过，我不确定哪些是有深度的希区柯克电影。
Ones like North by Northwest, To Catch a Thief I think of as light and frothy, but I don’t know.
像《西北偏北》、《抓贼》这样的作品我认为是轻松而泡沫的，但我不知道。
There’s some underlying sense of menace, and maybe having more frothiness in it is part of the depth as well.
有一些潜在的威胁感，也许其中更多的泡沫也是深度的一部分。
Yes.
是的。
Yes, it’s hard to say.
是的，这很难说。
There are so many great ones, and some of them are probably less known to people.
伟大的人物有很多，其中有些可能不太为人们所知。
Some of the black-and-white ones that younger people don’t tend to watch as much, Strangers on a Train, Notorious —
一些年轻人不常看的黑白片，《火车上的陌生人》、《美人计》——
Those are very good.
这些都非常好。
— some of those.
——其中一些。
But things like Jamaica Inn, I don’t love.
但像牙买加旅馆这样的东西，我不喜欢。
They do feel a bit creaky to me.
他们确实让我觉得有点吱吱作响。
Yes, that’s right.
是的，没错。
Now, if we think of the 1990s, the late ’90s, Taiwanese film is quite special.
现在，如果我们回想20世纪90年代、90年代末，台湾电影是相当特别的。
A bit later, South Korean film becomes the thing.
过了一会儿，韩国电影就流行起来了。
Iranian movies for a while, though that probably is mostly over.
伊朗电影有一段时间了，尽管这可能大部分已经结束了。
There’s a blip in Romanian cinema.
罗马尼亚电影界出现了一个小插曲。
What’s the next location where you’re excited about the moviemaking?
下一个让您对电影制作感到兴奋的地点是哪里？
I don’t know.
我不知道。
I kind of feel like I’ve already gone through sort of the peak period for my life.
我感觉我已经经历了人生的巅峰时期。
Everybody has eras that resonate with them.
每个人都有与自己产生共鸣的时代。
For me, the East Asian films from places like Taiwan in the ’90s were maybe what the French New Wave was to a generation older than me.
对我来说，90年代台湾等地的东亚电影对于比我年长的一代人来说可能就是法国新浪潮。
I don’t know if I’ll ever really recreate that feeling.
我不知道我是否能真正重现那种感觉。
That’s not a knock on the movie industry.
这并不是对电影业的打击。
I think the directors coming along now are perhaps as talented as ever or more talented, but it’s my receptivity to what’s being done is maybe not as high as when I was younger.
我认为现在出现的导演可能和以前一样有才华，或者更有才华，但我对正在做的事情的接受度可能不如我年轻时那么高。
There’s a certain period when you’re at your peak ability to receive a certain type of film.
在某个特定时期，你接收某种类型电影的能力处于巅峰状态。
I just looked at a list of Matt Yglesias’s favorite films.
我刚刚看了马特·伊格莱西亚斯最喜欢的电影清单。
Three of them that I’d seen — Dune, Anora, and Challengers — they seemed like good films, but I felt like I was too old for them.
我看过其中三部——《沙丘》、《阿诺拉》和《挑战者》——它们看起来都是好电影，但我觉得我对它们来说太老了。
I didn’t really connect with them.
我并没有真正与他们联系。
Maybe a generational thing.
也许是一代人的事情。
Matt does not watch — I love Matt, but he does not watch enough foreign movies.
马特不看 — 我爱马特，但他看的外国电影不够多。
I think right now Hollywood is pretty terrible.
我认为现在的好莱坞非常糟糕。
Foreign cinema, in this hard-to-predict diverse way, is pretty wonderful, but it’s not in any single place the way it had been in East Asia.
外国电影以这种难以预测的多样化方式非常精彩，但它在任何一个地方都不像东亚那样。
Even — I’m going to sound like an old film snob here, but if I go back to the ’60s and ’70s, when you had those Kubrick and Coppola masterpieces one after another, I don’t feel like I’m seeing that now.
甚至 —— 我在这里听起来会像个老电影势利小人，但如果我回到60年代和70年代，当你一个又一个地欣赏库布里克和科波拉的杰作时，我不觉得我现在看到的是这样的。
But it’s possible that they’re out there, that I’m just missing them.
但也有可能他们就在那里，只是我想念他们。
Or it may be that the directors may be just as talented, but the fact that they’re coming later makes them not seem that way.
或者，导演们可能同样有才华，但他们来得晚这一事实让他们看起来并非如此。
They seem more derivative.
它们似乎更具衍生性。
You can look at the Coen brothers, clearly extremely talented directors, but if they had been on the scene 40 years earlier, would they be viewed more highly because they would have been more innovative at that time?
你可以看看科恩兄弟，他们显然是非常有才华的导演，但如果他们早40年出现，会不会因为他们当时更有创新精神而受到更高的评价？
I think so.
我想是的。
They bore me a bit.
他们让我有点厌烦。
Like, they’re fine, I agree they’re super talented, but I don’t really look forward to seeing the next thing they do.
就像，他们很好，我同意他们非常有才华，但我并不真的期待看到他们接下来做的事情。
Then ask this question, though: What happened to Coppola after the ’70s?
然后问这个问题：70 年代后科波拉发生了什么？
He has those four masterpieces.
他有这四件杰作。
Why can’t he continue?
为什么他不能继续？
He was presumably just as talented, but maybe he had just run out of ideas.
他大概也同样有才华，但也许他只是没有想法了。
My view is that cinema has evolved in a way where the more interesting directors today are ones that have sort of a more weird or edgy style, more unusual style, because the conventional masterpieces like The Godfather have already been done.
我的观点是，电影的发展方式是，当今更有趣的导演是那些风格更怪异或前卫、更不寻常的导演，因为像《教父》这样的传统杰作已经完成了。
So you have more quirky filmmakers like Wes Anderson, David Lynch, and so on that are pushing the envelope in kind of a mannerist direction.
因此，有更多古怪的电影制作人，如韦斯·安德森、大卫·林奇等，他们正在朝着一种矫饰主义的方向挑战极限。
Do you think there are Hollywood movies, recent ones, that 50 years from now will be viewed as classics and still watched?
您认为有哪些好莱坞电影，无论是最近上映的电影，50 年后仍会被视为经典并且仍然会被观看吗？
I’m not sure there will be, actually.
事实上，我不确定会有。
Right now, it’s Christmas season.
现在，正是圣诞节。
People watch Wizard of Oz again, perhaps.
也许人们会再次观看《绿野仙踪》。
I don’t myself like It’s a Wonderful Life, but I would grant it’s become a classic.
我自己并不喜欢《生活多美好》，但我承认它已成为经典。
Die Hard, which is pretty good, right?
《虎胆龙威》，这很不错，对吧？
That’s become a sort of classic, Christmas classic.
这已经成为一种经典，圣诞经典。
Are we producing ones like that?
我们正在生产这样的产品吗？
They’re not even the best movies, right?
它们甚至不是最好的电影，对吧？
But they’ve lasted.
但它们一直持续着。
Yes.
是的。
No, I think that that’s my view: In any art form, there’s like a golden era.
不，我认为这就是我的观点：任何艺术形式都有一个黄金时代。
There’s multiple, in some cases.
在某些情况下，有多个。
If you take the art of painting, there is an enormous number of masterpieces produced between 1600 and, say, 1675.
如果以绘画艺术为例，1600 年到 1675 年之间创作了大量的杰作。
The next 75 years, I don’t think it’s anywhere close to being comparable to that previous 75 years, when Rembrandt, Velázquez, Vermeer, Rubens, all those were so spectacular.
接下来的75年，我认为无法与之前的75年相提并论，当时伦勃朗、委拉斯开兹、维米尔、鲁本斯，所有这些人都如此壮观。
I think painting didn’t get a lot of momentum again until the 19th century, when there was new innovations, which opened up new possibilities.
我认为绘画直到19世纪才再次获得强劲动力，当时出现了新的创新，开辟了新的可能性。
Yes, I think that in film, certain styles get played out.
是的，我认为在电影中，某些风格会被发挥出来。
Then eventually somebody develops something new.
然后最终有人开发出新的东西。
I’m actually surprised by how vibrant the novel is as an art form, because that’s been around for a long time.
事实上，我对小说作为一种艺术形式的活力感到惊讶，因为它已经存在很长时间了。
It’s done fantastically well, yes.
做得非常好，是的。
Knausgård, Ferrante.
诺斯加德，费兰特。
It seems like inexhaustible, almost, in its possibilities.
它的可能性似乎是无穷无尽的。
How did you like Solenoid, by the way?
顺便问一下，您觉得 Solenoid 怎么样？
I know you were reading it.
我知道你正在读它。
Did you finish it?
你做完了吗？
I loved it.
我喜欢它。
I thought this is one of the best novels of the last 10 years.
我认为这是近十年来最好的小说之一。
Same here.
同样在这里。
I think it’s an unusual novel.
我认为这是一本不寻常的小说。
It seems to me to be kind of a depressing novel, but on the other hand, I consider myself a middlebrow reader, not a highbrow reader.
在我看来，这是一本令人沮丧的小说，但另一方面，我认为自己是一个中庸的读者，而不是一个高雅的读者。
When I say it’s depressing, that may be just superficial, and maybe at a deeper level, it’s inspiring in some way.
当我说这令人沮丧时，这可能只是表面的，也许在更深的层面上，它在某种程度上是鼓舞人心的。
But I found it kind of mesmerizing in a similar way to My Struggle by Knausgård, in that sometimes you finish a novel and say, “Okay, on to the next one.
但我发现它有点令人着迷，就像克瑙斯加德的《我的奋斗》一样，有时你读完一本小说然后说：“好吧，继续看下一本。
That was a nice novel.” Then there are some novels where you feel like a whole world has been sort of opened up in front of you.
那是一本不错的小说。”还有一些小说，让你感觉整个世界都在你面前打开了。
I think My Struggle was like that.
我想我的奋斗就是这样。
I think Solenoid was like that.
我认为电磁阀就是这样的。
The author, Cărtărescu —
作者，Cărtărescu ——
Earlier ones like In Search of Lost Time and some of the classics, it’s more than just a novel.
早期的《追忆似水年华》等一些经典作品，它不仅仅是一本小说。
It’s a whole world, in a sense.
从某种意义上说，这是一个完整的世界。
The author of Solenoid has a new novel out.
《电磁阀》的作者出了一本新小说。
It’s not in English yet.
它还不是英文的。
I bought a German-language copy.
我买了一本德语版。
It’s long enough.
已经够长了。
I’m not sure if I’ll read it in German, but at some point, it will be coming.
我不确定我是否会读德语版，但在某个时候，它会来的。
You can look forward to that.
您可以期待一下。
Okay.
好的。
I think it suggests you don’t have less enthusiasm for wonderful new creations, and that you should, at least by your own standards, decide a lot of cinema is worse.
我认为这表明你对精彩新作品的热情并没有减少，而且你应该，至少按照你自己的标准，认为很多电影更糟糕。
It’s not that you’re incapable of appreciating it.
并不是你没有能力去欣赏它。
Well, there was — I can’t get the quote right exactly, but Susan Sontag said something to the effect of, “Are artistic masterpieces still possible?” Then she said, “Or are we not receptive to the possibility of future masterpieces?” Is the problem they’re not being produced, or that we’re no longer receptive to them?
嗯，有—— 我无法准确地理解这句话，但苏珊·桑塔格说了一些大意是“艺术杰作仍然可能吗？”然后她说：“或者我们不接受未来杰作的可能性？”问题是它们没有被生产出来，还是我们不再接受它们？
I think it is somewhat of an open question.
我认为这是一个悬而未决的问题。
You can consume so much of any art form, or multiple art forms, that you become a bit jaded.
你可以消费太多的任何艺术形式或多种艺术形式，以至于你会变得有点厌倦。
I don’t know, it would be interesting to think about what younger viewers that are very talented at the arts think of directors like, say, Kubrick as compared to how I view Kubrick.
我不知道，与我对库布里克的看法相比，考虑一下在艺术方面非常有才华的年轻观众对库布里克这样的导演的看法会很有趣。
I saw the Kubrick films when they first came out, but he has been very much imitated.
库布里克的电影刚上映时我就看过，但他的作品被模仿得很多。
So maybe younger viewers would be less impressed by some of his films because they would think, “Well, I’ve seen that before.” Of course, what they saw before was actually after he created that innovative style.
因此，也许年轻观众会对他的一些电影印象不那么深刻，因为他们会想，“嗯，我以前看过。”当然，他们之前看到的其实是他创造出那种创新风格之后的。
We just have so much material flooding our senses that it may be more difficult.
我们的感官充斥着太多的材料，这可能会变得更加困难。
Like, could you imagine someone coming along like Bach or Beethoven in classical music in the next decade and having that impact?
就像，你能想象在未来十年里像巴赫或贝多芬这样的人在古典音乐领域出现并产生这样的影响吗？
Wouldn’t you agree it’s unlikely we’ll get something like that?
你不同意我们不太可能得到这样的东西吗？
It’s quite unlikely, yes.
是的，这不太可能。
Yes, extremely unlikely.
是的，极不可能。
Philip Glass had real impact on me, the early works.
菲利普·格拉斯的早期作品对我产生了真正的影响。
Not equal to Bach or Beethoven, of course, but it shook my world when I heard Einstein on the Beach and some of the other operas.
当然，它比不上巴赫或贝多芬，但当我听到《海滩上的爱因斯坦》和其他一些歌剧时，它震撼了我的世界。
It was genuinely new.
这确实是新的。
It’s held up.
它被搁置了。
I think people still love it, and 50 years from now, it will still be with us.
我认为人们仍然喜欢它，50 年后，它仍然会和我们在一起。
There were some things in classical music, if Glass is even that, and certainly in popular music there’s been plenty, not in the last 10, 15 years, but pretty recently.
古典音乐中有一些东西，如果格拉斯也是这样的话，当然流行音乐中也有很多东西，不是在过去 10 年、15 年，而是最近。
Yes, I think so.
是的，我想是的。
You asked what might hold up.
你问什么可能会持续下去。
I don’t know if there’ll be classics like It’s a Wonderful Life and that sort of classic, but I think films by Wes Anderson may hold up well because his style is so distinctive, his visual style especially.
我不知道是否会出现像《生活多美好》之类的经典，但我认为韦斯·安德森的电影可能会很受欢迎，因为他的风格非常独特，尤其是他的视觉风格。
Christopher Nolan, what’s your view there?
克里斯托弗·诺兰，你对此有何看法？
Yes, I think that the films are usually pretty entertaining, but he’s not one of my top directors.
是的，我认为这些电影通常都很有趣，但他不是我最喜欢的导演之一。
What’s missing?
缺少什么？
They’re very skillfully made, but stylistically, I see them as fairly conventional.
它们制作得非常巧妙，但从风格上来说，我认为它们相当传统。
Did he do the Batman film with the Joker?
他和小丑一起拍了蝙蝠侠电影吗？
Oh, he did a Batman film, but it’s escaping me which one.
哦，他拍了一部蝙蝠侠电影，但我不知道是哪一部。
Yes, I sort of thought — so if you look at the Batman films, the one where the actor who passed away, unfortunately (I forgot his name), who played the Joker, that one caught my attention because of that performance.
是的，我有点想——所以如果你看一下蝙蝠侠电影，不幸的是（我忘记了他的名字）去世了，扮演小丑的演员因为那次表演而引起了我的注意。
But generally speaking, those sort of big-budget modern action films don’t interest me all that much.
但一般来说，那些大成本的现代动作片我不太感兴趣。
But his films are certainly more interesting than typical — Inception, Interstellar, and so on — intriguing to watch, visually dazzling.
但他的电影肯定比典型的电影更有趣——《盗梦空间》、《星际穿越》等等——观看起来很有趣，视觉上令人眼花缭乱。
As I get older, I guess I tend to migrate more toward sort of quiet films.
随着年龄的增长，我想我更倾向于看一些安静的电影。
When I go to the theater now, I’m often seeing something that’s a fairly quiet film.
当我现在去电影院时，我经常看到一部相当安静的电影。
But the previews that appear before the movie are just nonstop car chases and explosions, and I feel sort of overwhelmed.
但电影之前出现的预告只是不间断的汽车追逐和爆炸，我感到有点不知所措。
I think to myself, “Well, that’s probably not for me,” even though the actual film might be much less intense than the preview.
我对自己说，“好吧，这可能不适合我”，尽管实际的电影可能没有预览那么激烈。
Ozu gets better and better, right?
小津越来越好了，对吧？
Yes, Ozu would be a classic example.
是的，小津就是一个典型的例子。
To be honest, many of the films I like today, I would have been bored by when I was young.
说实话，我现在喜欢的很多电影，在我年轻的时候都会觉得无聊。
When I was young, I would have liked Christopher Nolan much more than Ozu.
当我年轻的时候，我会更喜欢克里斯托弗·诺兰而不是小津。
It’s sort of — I cultivated a little more patience, and I’ve learned that with patience comes the ability to absorb certain types of art that you’re not able to absorb if you don’t make the effort.
这有点像——我培养了更多的耐心，而且我了解到，有了耐心，就有能力吸收某些类型的艺术，如果你不付出努力，你就无法吸收这些艺术。
On the Scott Sumner origin story
关于斯科特·萨姆纳的起源故事
For our final segment, I have just some basic questions about your history.
对于我们的最后一部分，我只有一些关于您的历史的基本问题。
How did you end up going to the University of Chicago for an economics PhD?
您最终是如何去芝加哥大学攻读经济学博士学位的？
Well, I was a fan of Milton Friedman.
嗯，我是米尔顿·弗里德曼的粉丝。
But how’d that happen?
但这是怎么发生的呢？
What’s your origin story?
你的起源故事是什么？
Batman has one.
蝙蝠侠有一个。
Where’d you come from?
你从哪里来？
I grew up in Madison.
我在麦迪逊长大。
I went to the University of Wisconsin as an undergraduate.
我本科就读于威斯康星大学。
I actually was accepted at Chicago, but for financial reasons, I went to Madison for my undergraduate years.
我实际上被芝加哥录取了，但由于经济原因，我去了麦迪逊读本科。
Then for graduate school, I only applied to Wisconsin and Chicago.
然后对于研究生院，我只申请了威斯康星州和芝加哥。
That was it.
就是这样。
I should say that at that time I was very ignorant about how the world worked.
应该说，当时我对这个世界是如何运作的非常无知。
I wasn’t very career oriented, very ambitious, very sort of linked into what was going on, so I’m not recommending my career path to anyone else.
我不是很以职业为导向，也不是很有雄心，对正在发生的事情也不太了解，所以我不会向其他人推荐我的职业道路。
I applied to those two schools, and Madison was my fallback school, in case I didn’t get into Chicago.
我申请了这两所学校，麦迪逊是我的后备学校，以防我没有进入芝加哥。
I was interested in free market economics at that time.
当时我对自由市场经济学很感兴趣。
That’s what drew me to the University of Chicago.
这就是吸引我来到芝加哥大学的原因。
Actually, again, this may be nostalgia on my part, but I feel like it was almost at its peak in the 1970s.
事实上，这可能是我的怀旧之情，但我觉得它在 1970 年代几乎达到了顶峰。
It was, of course.
当然是这样。
There was a lot of interesting stuff being done there, a lot of people that were getting Nobel Prizes or would get them in the next few decades for their work done about that time.
那里做了很多有趣的事情，很多人因为当时所做的工作而获得了诺贝尔奖，或者将在未来几十年内获得诺贝尔奖。
How did you fit in with your other Chicago classmates?
你和其他芝加哥同学相处得怎么样？
Were you an outlier or a loner or center of attention?
你是一个局外人、孤独者还是关注的焦点？
How did that all work?
这一切是如何运作的？
I wasn’t completely — my personality was kind of shy.
我不完全是——我的性格有点害羞。
The biggest problem I had is I didn’t interact much with faculty, but I did have some students that I studied with.
我遇到的最大的问题是我与老师的互动不多，但我确实有一些和我一起学习的学生。
In those days, grad school was very different.
在那些日子里，研究生院非常不同。
First of all, it was very nontechnical.
首先，这是非常非技术性的。
You didn’t have to know a lot of math or statistics.
你不必了解很多数学或统计学。
In addition, they would admit about 60 students a year, and they would basically flunk out half the class within a few years.
另外，他们每年招收大约60名学生，几年之内，他们基本上就会有一半的学生不及格。
They had pretty strict core exams and prelims.
他们有相当严格的核心考试和预赛。
There were big classes.
有大班。
It wasn’t small seminars like I imagine you get in a lot of places now, except the upper-level classes were smaller.
这并不像我想象的那样，现在很多地方都有小型研讨会，只是高年级的班级规模较小。
It was very contentious, and it didn’t bother me at all, but many years later, I began to read about gender problems in higher education, how a lot of women don’t like the style that was used in Chicago seminars, very argumentative and aggressive.
这是非常有争议的，它根本没有困扰我，但很多年后，我开始阅读有关高等教育中的性别问题的文章，很多女性不喜欢芝加哥研讨会上使用的风格，非常好争论和咄咄逼人。
I just accepted that as normal when I was young.
当我年轻的时候，我只是把这当作正常的事情。
That was, I suppose, a distinctive feature.
我认为这是一个显着特征。
Definitely, the Chicago students tended to be really good at intuition.
毫无疑问，芝加哥的学生往往非常擅长直觉。
The view at that time was, the MIT students were really good at the technical side of economics, and the Chicago students were good at the intuition, because we were constantly being trained on sort of real-world story problems where you had to apply Chicago Price Theory.
当时的观点是，麻省理工学院的学生非常擅长经济学的技术方面，而芝加哥大学的学生则擅长直觉，因为我们不断接受有关现实世界故事问题的培训，在这些问题中你必须应用芝加哥价格理论。
That education was helpful to me later on when I got into blogging.
当我后来开始写博客时，这种教育对我很有帮助。
I think it gave me intuition to think about certain issues in a way that I wouldn’t have had, maybe, if I’d gone through a more technical program somewhere else.
我认为它给了我直觉来思考某些问题，如果我在其他地方经历了更具技术性的项目，也许我不会有这种方式。
Why do you think it is, in your career, you were a late rather than early bloomer?
您认为在您的职业生涯中，为什么您是大器晚成而不是早起？
I guess it’s personality flaws.
我想这就是性格缺陷吧。
I probably actually went to —
我可能实际上去了 ——
Strengths also, right?
也有优点吧？
There’s plenty of people who never bloom.
有很多人，从来没有绽放过。
My parents probably should have held me back one year even to go to kindergarten.
我的父母可能应该让我推迟一年甚至去幼儿园。
I wasn’t a particularly good student, or I was an uneven student all along the way.
我不是一个特别优秀的学生，或者说我一直都是一个成绩不理想的学生。
I wasn’t particularly ambitious.
我并不是特别有野心。
I’m not sure why.
我不知道为什么。
Yes, it’s kind of weird.
是的，这有点奇怪。
I got into blogging 15 years ago, and it put me into a different world where I was interacting with a lot of people, mainly electronically interacting, but I’d been much more of a loner for most of my life.
我 15 年前开始写博客，它让我进入了一个不同的世界，在那里我与很多人互动，主要是通过电子方式互动，但我一生中的大部分时间都是一个孤独的人。
When I look back on that earlier period of life, it almost feels like a different person now.
当我回顾过去的生活时，现在感觉就像变了一个人。
I can’t analyze exactly why I was a late bloomer, but it was clearly an aspect of my personality.
我无法准确分析为什么我大器晚成，但这显然是我性格的一个方面。
It wasn’t like I was held back by something artificial.
我并不是被人为的东西阻碍了。
I just wasn’t applying myself as aggressively or forcefully as I could have, but when I would get under the gun, I would at the last minute somehow get things done that I need.
我只是没有尽我所能地积极或有力地运用自己，但当我处于枪口之下时，我会在最后一刻以某种方式完成我需要的事情。
I almost didn’t even stay at Bentley.
我什至差点没有留在宾利。
Then I did my dissertation very quickly right before they were going to fire me.
然后，在他们要解雇我之前，我很快就完成了论文。
I went in ABD.
我去了ABD。
Then, a few years later, I actually got turned down for tenure for lack of publications.
几年后，我实际上因缺乏出版物而被拒绝获得终身职位。
Then quickly got a few publications, including the JPE article I mentioned.
然后很快就得到了一些出版物，包括我提到的JPE文章。
I got tenure by reapplying under different circumstances.
我通过在不同情况下重新申请获得了终身教职。
I was treated actually very well; many schools, I wouldn’t have even survived at.
我实际上受到了很好的对待；很多学校，我什至都无法生存。
Then, unlike a lot of faculty, I did most of my research after getting tenure, almost none before.
然后，与许多教师不同的是，我的大部分研究都是在获得终身教职后进行的，之前几乎没有。
I had a very odd career that didn’t fit the normal mold.
我的职业生涯非常奇怪，不符合正常模式。
I didn’t pursue topics that were trendy.
我不追求时髦的话题。
I just pursued things I was interested in.
我只是追求我感兴趣的事情。
Even my dissertation — Lucas was my chair at Chicago, and I did currency hoarding.
甚至我的论文 ——卢卡斯是我在芝加哥的教授，我也从事货币囤积工作。
That’s an odd thing for someone to do studying under Lucas, who’s known for rational expectations theory and so on.
对于在卢卡斯手下学习的人来说，这是一件奇怪的事情，卢卡斯以理性预期理论等而闻名。
I just pursued what interested me.
我只是追求我感兴趣的事情。
For decades, I pursued work on the Great Depression.
几十年来，我一直致力于研究大萧条。
I think my book on the Great Depression is the one book I’m proud of.
我认为我关于大萧条的书是一本令我感到自豪的书。
I think there’s some useful academic contributions in that book.
我认为那本书中有一些有用的学术贡献。
The other books I wrote are more just popularizing my blog posts.
我写的其他书更多的是为了普及我的博客文章。
That book, I did a lot of real research on.
那本书，我做了很多真正的研究。
It’s been, I guess, kind of an unusual career in that sense, not following the conventional path.
我想，从这个意义上说，这是一种不寻常的职业，没有遵循传统的道路。
Final question.
最后一个问题。
What will you do next?
接下来你会做什么？
Well, I’ll be 70 next year, so.
好吧，明年我就70岁了，所以。
That’s young.
那很年轻。
No. I’ll tell you, I think that in my mid-30s, I just quickly transitioned from young to middle age.
不，我告诉你，我认为在我30多岁的时候，我只是很快地从青年过渡到中年。
I think in my mid-60s, I just transitioned from middle age to old.
我想在我60多岁的时候，我刚刚从中年过渡到老年。
After that transition, it’s no longer about what I’m going to do.
转变之后，我要做什么就不再重要了。
It’s like, okay, I’ve basically done what I’m going to do.
就好像，好吧，我基本上已经完成了我要做的事情。
I’m not going to write any more books.
我不会再写任何书了。
I’m going to try to just sort of enjoy life, but I think enjoying life does involve being productive in some sense.
我会尝试享受生活，但我认为享受生活确实需要在某种意义上变得富有成效。
So I rebooted my blog a few months ago, trying to make it better and more enjoyable.
所以几个月前我重新启动了我的博客，试图让它变得更好、更有趣。
I’ll pursue that as kind of a half-job, half-hobby type of activity.
我将把它作为一种半工作、半爱好的活动来追求。
I’ll keep busy.
我会继续忙碌。
Other than that, I’ll just do things like travel and movies and read novels and so on, things I enjoy.
除此之外，我只会做一些我喜欢的事情，比如旅行、看电影、看小说等等。
I don’t have any major career objectives.
我没有任何主要的职业目标。
Not to sound too morbid, but I really feel like my life is 95 percent over or 98 percent over.
不想听起来太病态，但我真的觉得我的生活已经结束了 95% 或 98%。
Because even if I have another 20 percent of my life left in front of me, time goes by so much faster when you get older that, in a subjective sense, that 20 percent of my life is only a few percentage points.
因为即使我的人生还剩下20%，随着年龄的增长，时间过得很快，从主观意义上来说，我人生的20%也只是几个百分点。
Because when you’re young, time goes so slowly.
因为年轻的时候，时间过得特别慢。
It makes you kind of look at things a different way than when you’re middle-aged or young.
它让你以一种与中年或年轻时不同的方式看待事物。
I hope I’m not depressing your listeners.
我希望我没有让你们的听众感到沮丧。
Don’t tell yourself, “Oh, I’ll wait till I’m retired and then do all these fun things,” because you may find you don’t have the energy at that point.
不要告诉自己，“哦，我会等到退休后再做所有这些有趣的事情，”因为你可能会发现那时你没有精力。
Scott Sumner, thank you very much.
斯科特·萨姆纳，非常感谢你。
It’s been a pleasure.
这是一种乐趣。
Thank you.
谢谢。